Question: Are "early votes" any harder to steal?

[Waiting For Everyman]

Just wondering if that makes any difference... if votes cast now are any safer from those tactics?

[Erin Elizabeth]

1. I don't know but we're voting early because election day

lines are going to be HORRENDOUS where I live. I mean, seriously bad. We aren't going to risk it on Nov. 4.

[NYC_SKP]

2. I have wondered that myself... It must vary by polling place.

It seems to me to be absolutely possible to fuck with early ballots, absentee and mail votes.

I wonder.....

[NightWatcher]

3. Obama and his peeps told us to vote early at the rally

so that we can work on election day, plus it's assumed to be as safe a vote as any

[elocs]

4. I have wondered that myself since I voted at the City Clerk's office in La Crosse.

I don't really know where they will be stored away for the next 4 weeks, but I've always felt my ballot was safe here.

[CrispyQ]

5. Good question.

Years ago I read an article that mentioned that people who live in abusive situations could have their vote stolen by the abuser -- the ballot comes in the mail & the abuser votes that ballot too. It seems like a valid concern to me.

If we had an Election Week instead of Election Day, everyone would have time to get to the polls. And if it's not as convenient as vote by mail, then too fucking bad. This is our country we're talking about. Somethings take a little sacrifice & finding time to vote is a small sacrifice to make!

[Waiting For Everyman]

7. We don't even have a national holiday, for everyone to be off of work.

That seems like a no-brainer to me.

[Alcibiades]

6. It depends on where you are

and what sort of voting apparatus you have, and who is in charge of it.

Where I am, we have verifiable optical scan machines and a verifiable nonpartisan crew in charge of counting the votes. In our early vote scheme, the votes are counted every day. The disadvantage to the way they are counted is that they in effect create new precincts at the early voting sites, so it's hard to tell from the figures where it is we need to turn out voters on election day. It does mean that many ballots are already counted on election day, so it's easier for what is sure to be an already overworked crew to count the votes.

I suppose it could also have an effect on exit polls, if one side's voters voted early at a higher rate, but I've seen no evidence of that. It would tend to make chicanery harder, however, because the number of votes they would have to flip on election day goes up with early voting.

Basically, though, if you trust your voting setup on election day, you should trust it to do the early vote well. It also enables you to volunteer on election day, so hell yes, vote early.